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The conversation before that involved Hillary. Read what the previous discussion was about...it might help.

He was talking about Obama 1 which was crystal clear. You were wrong. There's no way to spin it other than you weren't paying attention. It doesn't matter what was talked about in conversation prior. Stop digging.

Who cares about Obama's first run by itself for referencing the 2016 election? His most recent effort is logically the one that should be compared to Hillary if you are talking about Democratic voter enthusiam and the discussion at the moment was about her. Why in the world reference the first one and not the second unless you are cherry picking numbers. And it wasn't obvious what you are referring to, I thought Obama 1 was some sort of weird typo that wasn't corrected.

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Who cares about Obama's first run by itself for referencing the 2016 election? His most recent effort is logically the one that should be compared to Hillary if you are talking about Democratic voter enthusiam and the discussion at the moment was about her. Why in the world reference the first one and not the second unless you are cherry picking numbers. And it wasn't obvious what you are referring to, I thought Obama 1 was some sort of weird typo that wasn't corrected.

Because it was Hillary's first run and the first female to run for president. Seems like the best comparison for enthusiasm would be an election where someone made their first run and was also a "first". Obama 1 and Hope and Change was a freight train, with Obama 2 some reality that the Big Pharma and Wall Street trumps hope started setting in.

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Because it was Hillary's first run and the first female to run for president. Seems like the best comparison for enthusiasm would be an election where someone made their first run and was also a "first". Obama 1 and Hope and Change was a freight train, with Obama 2 some reality that the Big Pharma and Wall Street trumps hope started setting in.

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Klobuchar is a very likable candidate and is very smart. IMO she could hold her own in any debate with any candidate (right or left). She's soft spoken and her demeanor could make her the perfect candidate to take on Trump. I don't think he could rattle her like he did Hillary.

I agree. I could see her just swatting him away like a fly. I don't necessarily buy the argument of Avenatti and others that Trump's opponent has to be a street fighter. Is there any sense, though, that's she's seriously considering?
ETA= I've posted this elsewhere in the forum, but here's her story on getting into politicshttps://leanin.org/stories/amy-klobuchar

Of course Democrats would flock to the polls to vote for Klobuchar, just like they’d flock to the polls to vote for pretty much anyone running against Trump.

In general, turnout for one party’s candidate isn’t driven by enthusiasm for that candidate. It’s driven by dislike for the other party’s candidate.

Klobuchar’s relative blandness (if that’s the general perception of her) is a point in her favor. It will drive many fewer Republicans to the polls than Clinton did, thus helping Democrats win the turnout race.

If that would have been the case Democrats would flocked to the polls for Hillary, but just running against Trump was not enough in itself for her to win the electoral college - nor would just being the standard bearer be enough for any candidate, contrary to your belief that any dull, colorless candidate would do well running against Trump.

Neither candidate in 2016 was dull or colorless. A dull and colorless Democrat probably would have beaten Trump, IMO.

This paper (which I summarized here) brings a lot of good data to the question of whether being a crazy extremist (i.e., "energizing your base") is better than being dull and colorless (i.e., avoiding energizing your opponent's base). The conclusion is that, in a general election, it's generally better to be dull and colorless (though obviously there's more to it than that). (Hillary was not a crazy extremist at all, of course, but for other reasons, she was still far more off-putting to Republicans than most Democrats are.)

The real trick, IMO, is being able to do both at once: to energize your own base while avoiding energizing your opponent's base. Obama did this quite well (outside of the racist portion of the Republican base). I think Beto O'Rourke has an exceptional natural talent for it. Maybe Amy Klobuchar can do it as well. Hillary Clinton couldn't. I don't think Elizabeth Warren can, either. My initial impression is that Cory Booker and Kamala Harris may not be quite as good at it as O'Rourke, but they'd be plenty good enough to defeat Trump.

I assume these results are skewed based primarily on name recognition - but I think its a bad sign for the Dems, in general, if the septuagenarians are leading the way in early 2020.

A second tier of candidates emerges

After Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke and Warren, a second tier of candidates is currently garnering support in the mid-single digits. They include:

Harris, a California senator — 5 percent

Booker, a New Jersey senator — 4 percent

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — 3 percent

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar — 3 percent

O'Rourke is the current flavor of the day, and absent any missteps, I think he will be a serious challenger when Iowa rolls around. Of, this 2nd group, I am anxious to see what Klobuchar does over the next year to establish her leadership credentials. I am not sure she has the charisma of O'Rourke, so she'll have to show something.

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My fear is Bernie doesn't enter because Warren has, I think she has made herself a joke.

I don't think either have a chance this cycle.

Last time I think Warren had a real chance to unseat Clinton. As much as I like Bernie, I think he only had a chance last time because all the main contenders dropped out early, or never got in the race in deference to Hillary, and her fundraising.

I think Bernie is still in the feeling out stage - I am still on hi mailing list, and the messages seem to be about gauging support - specifically financial support. With a larger field, the grassroots fund raising will be more difficult.

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Last time I think Warren had a real chance to unseat Clinton. As much as I like Bernie, I think he only had a chance last time because all the main contenders dropped out early, or never got in the race in deference to Hillary, and her fundraising.

I think Bernie is still in the feeling out stage - I am still on hi mailing list, and the messages seem to be about gauging support - specifically financial support. With a larger field, the grassroots fund raising will be more difficult.

Bernie does good with policy, minorities (better than Dems minorities thinking of runninng) and people that support Trump. Now if Corporate Dems came around we might have something.

He is old, I will give you that but he can stand up without help, guess that's a plus, right?

He wants to be known as the "Climate Candidate". Sounds good to be me. This issue needs to be stressed.

Yeah - I posted that above. I assume he is really only in the race to keep environmental issues in the conversation.

Which, like you, I agree are good to be part of the discussion. I am not a big tree-hugger, but I think it make sense to clean things up - and to generate jobs in emerging industries around new energy cources.

Although she avoided making the early trips to Iowa during the 2018 cycle, Senator Elizabeth Warren has already secured an impressive line-up of Iowa campaign operatives that will help put her into serious contention for the Iowa Caucus. Her campaign tells Starting Line that Kane Miller, Emily Parcell, Janice Rottenberg and Brendan Summers have all signed on to be part of Warren’s Iowa operation.

The news comes before Warren’s inaugural visit to Iowa this weekend, where she’ll hold events in Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Sioux City and Storm Lake. She announced her official presidential exploratory committee on Monday.

All four of Warren’s hires have the experience to where they could easily serve as state directors for any top-tier candidate, making it particularly noteworthy that Warren was able to recruit all of them. There’s a limited pool of top Iowa staffing talent to go around for the very expansive 2020 field, so taking this group of people off the board so early may put pressure on other potential candidates to speed up their timelines.

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I live in Washington and don’t think I have heard him speak for more than 15 seconds.

I wholeheartedly applaud any reason to bring the environment to the front of the conversation though.

That's surprising! I've heard him in national interviews on many occasions, including in several over the past year or so where he was asked if he was going to run. I find him impressive in interviews.

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That's surprising! I've heard him in national interviews on many occasions, including in several over the past year or so where he was asked if he was going to run. I find him impressive in interviews.

It is. Maybe because he has had pretty easy elections here in our state.

I have heard his name floated a bit as a candidate and every time I think how little I know about him.

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I’ve been seeing lists of like 30 Democrats who are likely to run and now there are dudes announcing that weren’t even on the lists. This is gonna get crazy.

Crazy is bad.

There is only so much money to go around. And, I think that the Clinton calculus will still be effective - maybe even more so - this year.

Bernie had a huge advantage in fundraising small dollars last cycle - because it was essentially him against the machine. Now, there will be a lot of candidates to attract those small dollars. And, so I think the candidate that nails down the large DNC donors will have a big advantage. Same with locking down the key endorsements.

But the DNC will have to be disciplined - and not let what happened in the GOP play out - where the establishment candidates were picked-off one-by-one.

Having said that, I am impressed that Warren was able to pick up so many key staff in Iowa.

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There is only so much money to go around. And, I think that the Clinton calculus will still be effective - maybe even more so - this year.

Bernie had a huge advantage in fundraising small dollars last cycle - because it was essentially him against the machine. Now, there will be a lot of candidates to attract those small dollars. And, so I think the candidate that nails down the large DNC donors will have a big advantage. Same with locking down the key endorsements.

But the DNC will have to be disciplined - and not let what happened in the GOP play out - where the establishment candidates were picked-off one-by-one.

Having said that, I am impressed that Warren was able to pick up so many key staff in Iowa.

So you think Bernie brought the donations not the policies? Give me the dunce cap.

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So you think Bernie brought the donations not the policies? Give me the dunce cap.

I think he did two things:

1. He figured out how to fund-raise in small dollar amounts. I think he was helped by having no real competition for those dollars - but he did it very well.

2. He raised issues that really resonated with a large swath of voters.

I think in this cycle, he will struggle to meet the fundraising he did in 2016 - there will be more candidates, but not necessarily more money, so it gets spread around a bit more. I also think he will not be the only champion of progressive issues. So, that will also dilute his support.

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1. He figured out how to fund-raise in small dollar amounts. I think he was helped by having no real competition for those dollars - but he did it very well.

2. He raised issues that really resonated with a large swath of voters.

I think in this cycle, he will struggle to meet the fundraising he did in 2016 - there will be more candidates, but not necessarily more money, so it gets spread around a bit more. I also think he will not be the only champion of progressive issues. So, that will also dilute his support.

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Lots of local talk (Southern California) recently about Tom Steyer. He hadn’t announced yet but apparently he’s spent over $250 million of his own money building up organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Steyer is currently an asterisk in the polls. He was the guy behind all those “impeach Trump” commercials, but most people have never heard of him.

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Lots of local talk (Southern California) recently about Tom Steyer. He hadn’t announced yet but apparently he’s spent over $250 million of his own money building up organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Steyer is currently an asterisk in the polls. He was the guy behind all those “impeach Trump” commercials, but most people have never heard of him.

I wondered when the "Impeach Trump" guy (never knew his name) would surface.

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A big donor Dem has nothing to offer people, leads to a Trump landslide.

There is only one thing I'm certain will not happen in 2020, and that is a Trump landslide. He may very well win the election, but if he does it will be either by losing the popular vote but hitting on the Great Lakes White People lottery once again or, if there's an amazing turnaround in his presidency, with a narrow popular vote win. There's zero chance he wins the popular vote by more than 2-3 percent. And he won't get a much bigger electoral college margin than he got in 2016- he basically maxed out in that respect, at best there's maybe 20 possible EC votes he didn't already get in play for him in 2020.

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Anyhow the main problem a guy like Steyer has, even beyond name recognition, is that I strongly doubt that Democratic voters are going to choose a candidate with no political experience. Actually I don’t think Republican voters would do it again.

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Anyhow the main problem a guy like Steyer has, even beyond name recognition, is that I strongly doubt that Democratic voters are going to choose a candidate with no political experience. Actually I don’t think Republican voters would do it again.